2067. Robert Southey to John Wilson Croker, 27 March 1812

I must not avail myself of your name to cover these Quarterly contributions, without thanking you for Talavera, – a
poem which has been one of the most successful of modern times, or indeed of any times, – & yet not more so than it deserves to
be. [1] You have done for Sir Arthur Wellesley what none of his contemporaries could do for
Marlborough. [2]
I must not wish you leisure to do as much for Earl Wellington, [3] – yet I have good hope that he may be destined to
atchieve a victories as splendid in itself <themselves> as Blenheim, [4] & more important in their consequences, – & then perhaps even your avocations will
not prevent you from finding time to celebrate it his career.

Notes

[1] Croker’s The Battles of Talavera, first published in 1809 had gone into
nine editions by 1812. It was written in the style of Scott’s Marmion (1808). BACK

[2] Wellesley was the hero of Croker’s poem, and remarked that he had not thought
‘that a battle could be turned into anything so entertaining’ (L. J. Jennings (ed.), The Croker Papers: The Correspondence
and Diaries of the Late Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, 2 vols (London, 1884), I, p. 25). The comparison is with the
British hero of the War of the Spanish Succcession, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650–1722; DNB). BACK

[3] Wellesley had been given an
Earldom on 18 February 1812 as a reward for the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo. BACK

[4] The victory of Marlborough and his allies over the French on 13 August 1704. It was also the subject of Southey’s 1798 anti-war
ballad ‘The Battle of Blenheim’. BACK